After the Meal

I feel my body waking up with the early spring. As the days become longer, I stretch, as if a bear from slumber. Wanting to move again after the rigid cold of winter, I trundled off to the gym for yoga and a sauna. I have a moderate resistance to yoga culture, or more broadly, to any place ripe for evangelism. For some, yoga is exercise, and for some it is the magical cure all for the entire universe. I look at it as something in between those two poles. The deep breathing, the stretching, paying attention to the edge between comfortable and painful, the attitude of loving kindness towards your body, those are the qualities I enjoy. A good class gives me a feeling of gratitude for the time, awe at the human body and a unique sense of fulfillment that comes from tuning into my breathing.
My first class back after winter, I laughed out loud during Shavasana, the minutes at the end of class where you lay on your back and relax. The teacher said that this is the most important time, it is when your body absorbs the benefits of the practice you have just done. It is not a waste of time, you are not just laying there. You are actively relaxing. Then he asked, "Are you able to relax, or are you too busy to be?" And I totally cracked up. That is how I feel! Too busy to be! Ha! I think this guy might have found a new entertainment niche: The Mindful Comedian.
Maybe because I laughed so hard, in a completely silent room, but that idea has stayed with me. My episodes of busyness and frazzled chaos: chasing Colby while I braid her hair, shoving breakfast in Coral's mouth while she talks and talks and talks; wolfing down my apple, making lists while I drive. Too busy to be. Every time I think it, I laugh and relax.
Once dinner had been consumed, I felt the impulse to jump up and do the dishes and get the kids in the bath, and braid their hair and brush their teeth and pick up the toys and wiggle them into pjs and read the stories and sing the songs and turn off the light and and and......on and on. And I thought, "Shavasana". Sitting at the table, we need a moment to absorb the benefits of the meal. As important as a moment of saying “thank you” at the beginning of the meal is relaxing after a meal.
I sparked up the conversation with Craig, who has never done a yoga class, about the idea of Shavasana and relating that practice to meal time. That Shavasana process is what you experience in long, elegant meals at good restaurants. After a sensuous meal there is encouragement to linger: petit fours, coffee, a digestif, there is time, long, lovely time to absorb the benefits and beauty of what you have just received, what you have given yourself. Permission to relax, surrender to the moment, to be. We talked about giving yourself permission for that moment on an ordinary day at home.
So we sat, just for a ten minutes at the end of the meal, and did not jump up. We did not propel onto the treadmill of routine chores. We relaxed and went from the table with ease rather than rush. It was fun, everything got done, and there was a little more happiness in the "doing" of all the chores that followed.

Fish Chowder, Soupe de Poissons

Photo: Fish Chowder with Wakame garnish

Craig is a reader of cookbooks. He studies them, reading and re-reading, imagining, playing with his own versions, and combining ideas. What he also does is visualize. He reads new, ambitious ideas and imagines it. He imagines the textures that would be best, what that means in terms of time cooked. He imagines it through to the extent that it is as if he has already made it many times when he tries a recipe for the first time. He is also experienced enough to know when a recipe seems off, to dig in with further comparative research if it seems like there is an error in the recipe, which, especially in the case of magazines, there frequently are.
This time of year, he studies soups, chowders, stews. Right now, Fish Chowder, Soupe de Poissons. He read through the old, musty French cookbooks where the recipes are written in paragraphs with no quantities or measurements. And he found a new love: Joe Beef. Helpfully, the new Joe Beef cookbook had a chowder recipe (with quantities and measurements!). One especially gray and freezing day Craig went for it.
Craig has made this one twice now and it is unbelievably, earth stopping-ly delicious.
Roll up your sleeves; it is a many stepped labor, and worth every ounce of effort and concentration.

you'll need, among other items:
10 fresh shrimp (with heads if possible)
10 little neck clams
1 small and 1 larger piece of cod. about 1 lb total

I. The Clams
wash the clams and put in a saucepan with 1 cup minerally white wine, a bay leaf, a pinch of sea salt and a peeled garlic clove. cook over high heat until the clams open. remove meat, saving any juices. mince. strain the liquid through a extra fine sieve or cheese cloth. add minced clams to the liquid and reserve.

II. A Stock
to 6 cups of water add…
2 stalks of celery, diced
1 carrot, diced
2 onions, diced
1 leek, diced
a handful of parsley stems
the shells and heads from the 10 aforementioned shrimp
the smaller piece of cod.
if augmenting the chowder with crab or lobster add those shells as well.
a few black pepper corns and a bay leaf.
cook over medium low heat, never allowing to boil, until the vegetables are soft and the fish falling apart. strain, pushing the solids through a extra fine sieve or cheese cloth to extract the liquid. reserve broth and discard the rest.

III. The Chowder
in a large enameled cast iron pot, over medium-low heat melt anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 cup of unsalted butter.
add: 3 diced onions, 3 sticks of celery also diced, about 1/4 lb of smokey slab bacon (or other porky thing to your liking. alternately you could sub some smokey fish or katsuo in the stock….cold smoke the onions first…you get the idea!)
cook until the onions and celery soften and the bacon is cooked but not crispy.
toss in a handful of flour and stir to absorb the butter and bacon fat.
add 2 large potatoes cut into large diced chunks. and stir.
pour in about 2 cups of the stock, 2 cups of whole milk and about a 1/2 cup of cream. cook over low heat until the potatoes are just about done.
cut the large piece of cod into chunks and put in the pot. when the cod turns opaque add the shrimp and when they blush let the clams (and their juice) join the party.
let the flavors blend for a few minutes then serve. garnish each bowl with chives and slivered celery leaves.
great with freshly made croutons or toast from a spectacular loaf of bread.

Venison Stew, Very Local

Photo: Deer Hunt Field
This is the most local meal we eat. The venison was shot with a bow in the land that extends for a few acres from our house. We witnessed the large animal fall, loaded into our hunter friend's truck, and delivered in cold packages a few days later. Craig took it out of the chest freezer a few months later and set it to thaw in a bowl of water. Unwrapping it, the link to the beautiful deer in the yard was visceral, even Coral was talking about it. We talked together about eating animals. About all the steps and expertise it requires to hunt and process one's meat. About the protein and warmth and energy that is transferred from the animal to us, to our bodies.
I saw Craig take a pause as he approached the muscular, ruby colored, solid shoulder. He stopped, took a big breath in and out, stilling himself to focus and took the first gesture into the shoulder with his long, silver knife.
It has a solemnity to it, facing the fact of the life that has been extinguished in order to be transferred to the omnivore, us. It got me thinking about the faith and magic, the cosmological processes that have been central to hunting, killing, preparing and feasting since the dawn of hunting itself. Some people, and groups of people have an active connection to food and source, but for me, facing this venison was unique and not totally comfortable. I did not want to tune out and avoid the fact of this meal. For all the meat we eat that is raised and sold by people we know, I should be having this solemn moment of acknowledgment and gratitude more often.
It is a serious business, being human: how we exist within our environment, how we sustain ourselves, live, grow.

This Venison Stew is like a real Texas Chile, it is pretty much just meat.

You will need:
about 3 lbs of venison shoulder cut in large cubes
1 carrot peeled and diced
1 onion diced
3 cloves of garlic peeled
a hand full of parsley
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
15 black peppercorns
1 bottle cote du rhone
1/4 lb or so bacon either diced or julienned
1/2 lb mushrooms
12 small boiling onions, peeled
a few dried mushrooms (morels are good!)
olive oil, butter, flour, sugar, port or cognac or scotch

day 1

in a large bowl mix the venison, carrots, onion, garlic, thyme, bay leaves, peppercorns, a couple springs of parsley. cover and refrigerate overnight.

day 2

cook the bacon in a large dutch oven until crisp. remove from pot, drain and reserve.

remove the venison from the marinade and blot dry. strain liquid and reserve. discard the solids. season the meat generously with salt and pepper. in batches, brown venison (in bacon fat and or duck fat!) on all sides over medium-high heat.
when all the meat is browned, return to the pot and toss in about 2 tbs of flour. stir until the flour browns then pour in the marinade. bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to medium low, cover and cook until venison is tender, roughly 2-3 hours.

while the meat is cooking prep the boiling onions. put the onions and a tsp of sugar in a pot of water. simmer until tender, about 25 minutes. drain and set aside.
if using dried mushrooms, soak in hot water for about 10 minutes. strain the liquid, reserving with the morels. slice and quickly saute the fresh mushrooms in butter.

after the venison has cooked about 2 hours or so add the morels to the pot and continue cooking.

when the meat is done, remove it from the pot. increase heat to med-high and add port (or other alcohol) cook for about 5 minutes. whisk in about 3 tbs of butter. return the venison to the sauce. followed by the onions and mushrooms. mix.

serve hot garnished with chopped parsley and slices of grilled country bread.

Herring on Toast

Along with oil and gold, fish is a natural resource with skyrocketing prices. That is, the fish breeds that are natural resources, caught wild rather than farmed. There was King Salmon at the grocery store recently for $32.- per pound. It was beautiful, glistening, beckoning. I looked through the cases for other wild fish, skimming over the farmed fish, noticing farmed salmon topped at around $7.- per pound. Finally, I found shiny, lovely piles of Herring and Sardines. They were $4.- a pound, affordable for the family of fish lovers. A friend from our neighborhood wine shop Red Feet, who was born and raised in Spain, was buying some Herring. We talked about people's intimidation of these tiny, rich, nutrient packed and as yet not totally over fished little breeds.
They are small, they do have a lot of bones and they are more pungently oily than more popular fish like salmon or cod. But, the bones are easy to clean, and they are delicious fried, really! And that pungent, oily presence is the density of omega's, the great gift from the sea that is so good for our bodies and especially our brains.
The nutritious and affordable Herring is a staple when we can get it. Craig makes variations on this and keeps it sealed tight in the fridge. It is a wonderful way to start the day, or as a pick me up in the afternoon. I had some on toast for breakfast, along with a fried egg and felt like Wonder Woman for all the rich, silky protein.
Enjoy!

4 fresh herring filleted

mix together-
3 tbs kosher salt
2 tbs sugar
1 bay leaf crumbled
about 1 tsp crushed sechuan pepper

3 sheets of kombu soaked in cold water to rehydrate. then pat dry.

pat the filets dry and roll in the mix until generously coated.

lay a sheet of kombu on a plate. lay 4 of the fillets, side by side. cover with another sheet of kombu and lay the next 4 herring fillets. cover with the 3rd sheet of kombu. wrap tightly in plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator for 3-4 hours.

after the initial cure, take the herring out of the fridge, rinse and wipe dry. serve sliced thin over pan toasted country bread with sweet fresh butter and thin sliced scallions. also great with creme fraiche!

The Leap

"How did you find the courage?"
I get that question a lot when people find out that my older child is special needs. Fellow parents of all sorts of kids say to me that they never could have had another child if there were issues with their first. Parents of special needs kids tell me they could never have another after all the work and heartbreak of their special needs child.
There are a few of us in this small town alone who had their special kids and then went for it again, another child.
A friend called me for coffee and told me over the phone that she was expecting her second child. I burst into tears of happiness and also felt the deep incisors of worry that I knew were permanently lodged in her heart with her pregnancy. Her first is a special needs child and she and her husband had been trying for another child for a while.
Sitting down together as we only seem to find time for a couple of times a year, our conversation covered housing, mobility, toileting, feeding, medication, allergies, school, and then finally, the baby.
She asked me, "How do you do it? How do you find your way through this gigantic, astonishing, constant fear? I hope, I hope, I just so hope everything is alright with this baby."
As different as my friend and I are, as different a diagnosis as our two special children have, I felt her words to the core of me. I felt like I knew what it was like to be in her skin, in her thoughts, in her urgent prayers on sleepless nights.
And the answer that came out of my mouth at her question was, "Love."
It is love. Love is the only thing big enough, massive enough in your heart and cosmology of how to move through the universe, love is the only way to make it. Love is the only way to silence the deafening and paralyzing fears and doubts about if you made the right decision, what you will do if your second has "issues" as well. Love is the only meditation that feels possible to contain your worry as well as your hope.
The literally endless worry about how you will balance the needs of your children could be an entire identity, could be where you decide to live, the central psychological commitment. And you will never get it right. There is no such thing as a right answer. There will be, no matter what your kids are like, no perfect symmetry of love and attention. If her second child is as healthy and running around as every parent expects their child to be, or if her child is just like her first born, there will be great days and there will be impossibly hard days.
I got my wish, I got the dream of watching a completely healthy child be born and learn and grow. With my second child I got to experience what every parent hopes for and expects. Watching, parenting Coral is the most astonishing, heart lifting miracle I've ever witnessed. And feeling the deep empathy that passes between Colby and I is the most mysterious, profound love and connection I've ever known. There is no point, in fact there is no real ability, to compare these children. It is as if they are distinct and intersecting universes within one house.
That may be how parents feel about their children, special needs or not. I do not know that experience of two (or more) kids, of life parenting without seizures and a dimension of constant, acute medical issues. I only know what I know, and looking at my beautiful, pregnant friend across the table, I knew her heart.
Our conversation ended where it started: You must, you must let yourself love. You must love your children. I hope that she gets to see her second child run across the grass. I hope she gets to hear her child say, "I love you moma." I hope she gets to have a child that she is able to predict and comfort. I hope she gets to feel her heart grow even bigger as she plumbs the depths of love and astonishment at a healthy child, and knows that to love both her kids is not to love one less or more. I hope she finds as I find over and over again, that it is only loving your children that is big enough to guide your heart through the challenges and polarities of a day.
We cannot project onto our children what their experience will be of life in our family. They are brighter, braver, stronger than us. They are innocent and open, brains literally growing before our eyes. Let us help them be brave and bright and strong by showing them that it is possible to live a life directed by love. Let us be the parents whose arms feel big enough to hold all of who our children are. Let us show them that it is not fear that guides our way. Let us show them love.
Isn't that the point of having children anyway? To love them and adore them? When your worries keep you up at night, I told my friend, find instead one moment from the day that you felt happy. Breathe that into your heart and breathe back out. Breathe into the love and beauty and let that be what you feel, what you do with your mind, where you go.
We held hands and cried across the table from each other. Fear, love, hope. We will find our way, we do find our way. Worrying is not going to make anything alright. And you will miss out on all the fun. How do you find the courage? With love.

Gratitude

Breakfast. Deep sigh, then another deep sigh. As I reached hungrily for the baguette and Humbolt Fog cheese, I stopped, placed my hands palms up on the table and closed my eyes and took several more deep breathes, in, and out, in, and out. From inside my dominant feeling of being rushed and tired, I suddenly fell head long into gratitude. It surprised me, it usually feels like being grateful, taking that moment to say thank you at a meal is something you do and then you feel. This moment came from another direction, it was as if the gratitude was circling around the room and demanded that I pay attention, pushing my hands to stop, my attention to go to my breathing. It felt like a gift, this cosmic invitation to that warmest, most meaningful of feelings: to be present in the moment.
My breakfast was a perfect meal. Canned peaches from the summer, a cheese that tastes of my California roots, a salad of bitter chicory, bread and water.
Through the meal, the sole moment I was likely to find in the day, the presence of gratitude was enveloping. Beauty and gratitude often travel together. It was in part my determination to have a simple but truly beautiful picnic breakfast that invited such a moment of gratitude. Slapping all the ingredients together into a sandwich and eating while I drove was one option for the morning. It would have been delicious, all the same ingredients, and I would have loved it. But I could not have been in the moment, driving, eating, listening to the radio, going over my to do list in my head. Sitting at the table, making the effort to find a functional, contemplative moment proved more nourishing than I could have anticipated.
Later in the week when Coral got pneumonia and Colby needed to go to the hospital for a strong virus that severely dehydrated her, I kept coming back to that still moment, that surprising day I had gratitude for breakfast.

The Gratitude Breakfast is a reminder to savor the quiet moments, to calm and still where and when you can. It provided me a fond and immediate memory to call on when my stress and concern for my children were mounting. Calm and gratitude are there for us, any moment we remembered, and feel.

Independence

How much of life do we learn at the table? How to eat and chew and swallow solid food. How to use a fork, chopsticks, our fingers, bread and spoon. How to recognize social nuance, the changes in tone, how to elevate and support gaiety and conviviality. How to give thanks, appreciate and be appreciated. We learn how to take our seat, claim our space, walk the balance between being independent, self sufficient and yet part of the collective, the whole.

There is a phase of early toddler hood where the child wants to do everything themselves, even though they can't quite do it yet. And that is why they want to, they must try in order to learn. To master drinking from a glass each human must spill many, many glasses. Part of being a parent is tolerating the time and the mess, the frustration and the exalted satisfaction of learning.

Colby has just entered this phase. I wasn't sure what was happening at first. We sat down to dinner as we always do, the bowl between us, the fork more to my side than hers. We held hands and said thank you and then, her favorite part, our raucous cheers.

I went to feed her the first forkful and she pursed her lips and moved her head away, leaning back in her chair. She is often time consuming to feed, she is never in a hurry, which I enjoy, it keeps us all at the table rather than rushing through a meal. She likes things in a certain order, but you never know what the order will be. She only recently started reaching for her glass when she wants water and that was a huge hallelujah moment, not having to guess, having her tell you what she wants.

I took a forkful of something else and she pursed her lips. Over and over. I was done with my meal by now. Coral then finished. Finally, Colby reached onto her plate, picked up a piece of meat with her whole palm and put it in her mouth. She turned to me with a triumphant gaze and I saw in a lightening bolt of recognition: she wanted to feed herself. She is six and a half. We have never had this moment.

Sometimes she will feed herself but it is more of a "I really want that raisin so I'll pick it up and get it myself" direction of the will. This dinner was the first time she would not eat until she was in control. She had reached a major developmental milestone. Had she been two it would have been immediately recognizable, the turning away, the pursed lips, the refusal until in control.

A very tall child with braids to her waist and missing front teeth, it took quite a while for me to make the connection. My body rushed with adrenaline, my heart filled with pride and the disbelief all parents feel when you actually see your child change before your very eyes.

I put several pieces of food in a row on the table in front of her. She ate quickly, decisively, smiling with her cheeks full of food. She was extremely pleased. Pleased with her ability and I feel like too with her ability to communicate her desire.

That is one of the challenges with a child who is developing outside the time line of a pediatric checklist of milestones. You never know when you are going to see the emergence of a skill, or if you ever will.

At the table I learned something. I learned to always keep my mind open. I learned to look each day at these growing children and say, "Who are you today?" What do you need? What do you want? How do I support you in your path of learning, around this table, in this life we share together? I learned again the beautiful relief in independence, of knowing the child you are raising can in part, or in full, know what they want, and get it.

Aprons and My Beautiful Zene

photo, Coral wearing an apron from Zene

I wear an apron every day. I have about twenty. And all but two were given to me by The Crazy Apron Lady, aka Zene, my best friend. Our friendship started on an oppressively hot day in kindergarten. The playground was a kidney shaped sandbox with a concrete path around the periphery, a track for riding tricycles. There was a bridge over one section of the track, and under that, the sole rectangle of shade. The mornings were cold and all the kids wore knee socks with their Buster Browns. By mid-morning recess, it was scalding. The sand and concrete and sky all a blinding white. I would take refuge under the bridge where the foggy night and morning dew were still trapped in the sand.

Eventually, Zene and I both claimed the rectangle of shade under the bridge. Our mothers were friends and forced us together, and in what may have been our first parallel rebellion, we insisted on not liking each other. Then one scalding mid-morning recess, Zene and I locked eyes and wordlessly, surreptitiously unbuckled our shoes, peeled off our clam-y socks, and sunk our feet into the cool sand.

It was ecstasy. Childhood is composed of so many sensory memories, perhaps because children can be in the moment to a degree that is so hard for us as adults. Or maybe because childhood is full of first times. I remember my first giant, spiral lollipop, at a market in Mexico, it was larger than my face: the feeling of a burning wish fulfilled. Or the first time riding a bike, the first nightmare, the first fancy dress, the first time you write your name in cursive.

Our ecstasy was extremely short lived. The teachers spotted us in moments and we were in trouble. It was strictly forbidden to take your shoes off in the sandbox, probably for a good reason, like broken glass. We duly bowed our heads as we received our punishment: the rest of recess inside the classroom, playing with Lincoln Logs. But we were smiling. The moment of cool, of exquisite relief, Lincoln Logs were a small price for joy.

And that has been our friendship: the pursuit of beauty, exquisite moments, joy. Even if it meant breaking the rules. In high school, while other girls were ditching class to go home and drink Kahlua and watch soap operas, we ditched on the days that were too beautiful to sit inside all day. We were in Carmel, CA. The beauty on a clear, warm day was almost laughable, absurdly, impossibly gorgeous. To the south, rolling green hills dotted with Oak trees, to the west, the glittering, sapphire blue Pacific Ocean. It was impossible for us not to go be in the day, just as impossible as keeping our socks on in kindergarten.

So we ditched. And we buried our feet in the sand again, and felt the sun relaxing every muscle, browning Zene and freckling me. We studied the horizons of our childhood. How the rocks at Point Lobos looked like a dragon laying his chin in the water. How the Pebble Beach Golf Course buildings, sand traps and trees composed to look like the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. We walked and collected shells. We took long deep breaths and savored the beauty, we loved life. We took a break from the anxiety and horror of adolescence and high school and were free, like the kids we still in part were.

Now, Zene and I are thousands of miles apart. We no longer ditch to go to the beach, though if we were still there I am sure we would. We no longer dance together after school in the ballet studio for hours and hours a day. We no longer know every thing the other is thinking all day every day. We are still best friends. Every time we are together my heart fills with my oldest, longest sense of complicity, joy, mischievousness, connection, love, hope and beauty. With her I feel impervious to heart break. I feel safe.

Even at this distance, Zene fills every day with beauty, in memories of course, but in the physical as well, through the exquisite collection of aprons she has given me and my girls over the years. Every day I put one on and I think of her. Everyday she makes the moment more lovely and fun. Every day our friendship protects me: the humble apron, the full heart.

Crabby Pasta, Happy Bellies

photo, crab stencil graffiti found in Ithaca, NY

Craig has been traveling for work for several weeks at a time. He is doing awesome work and we are fairing well at home, but it is hard some of the time. Long nights, lots of chores, two kids, holidays: I miss my partner. I miss laughing together, holding hands, sharing the chores, and taking turns getting up in the night. And his cooking, I miss that too. Though when he is gone is practically the only time I get to practice my own dinners, to see what I have learned from all the time observing, freshen up my latent skills, try things.

I also like seeing what the girls need of me in Craig's absence.

Coral is as moody as anyone, but as with most children, her mood can be lifted in an instant. When she is crabby she asks Craig to "shake her crabs out." He lifts her and holds her upside down and shakes, as if she were a bushel of apples being emptied, and exclaims "look at all those crabs shaking out!" He makes the sound of hundreds of little crab legs scuttling across the floor and shouts out where they are going, "down the heater vent, out the front door, hiding under the chairs!" Soon, Coral's crabs and scowls are gone and we are all laughing. When Craig is gone and I ask her if she is feeling crabby, she shoots me a scowl-y smile and I do my best to hoist her up and shake the crabs out.

One night, when I was crabby, Craig shook my crabs out with this pasta. And in his absence, I managed to pull it off myself on a night that was grey, freezing cold and me and the girls were all feeling a little worn out and crabby. It is joyously good, the essence of sea in the economical amount of crab, the land in the pasta, and the sunshine in the scallions. Enjoy!

Crabby Pasta

As we live in Central New York state, it's a luxury to get frozen crab meat from a small company in Maine. No crabs in the lake here! If this dish was being made in California I'd substitute fresh, live Dungeness!

You will need:
A container of crab meat (look for a company harvesting crab sensibly ie, not trawling)

As many scallions as you like. Green part slivered, white parts quartered length-wise, then finely diced

1 garlic clove, smashed and chopped

3 anchovy filets. Rinse if using oil packed. Rinse and filet if using salt packed (better!)

An avocado quartered and sliced into 1/2" chunks

Fresh mint leaves (a light handful) slivered

Some parsley leaves

A lemon

Penne or other Italian dried pasta you love

To make:
Start a large pot of salted water to boil.

Pour a few glugs of olive oil in a large skillet on medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, toss in the anchovies and mash with a fork until they've melted into the oil. Add a few grinds of black pepper. Remove pan from heat and turn the heat down to medium. Put the white parts of the scallions and the garlic clove into the anchovy oil and cook until just softened. Add the crab meat and stir to incorporate the other ingredients. Remove the skillet from heat.

By now the water should be boiling, add the pasta to the water and cook until just al dente. Using a spider, transfer the pasta to the pan with the crab/scallion mix. Add a couple ladles of the hot pasta water and mix with wooden spoons over medium-high heat until the liquid is almost all gone. Toss in the scallion greens, the avocado (save a few pieces to put on top) and the mint. Squeeze a bit of lemon juice and toss the pasta some more. Add the parsley leaves on to for a visual element and serve hot from the pan!

Wood Roasted Chicken

We are having a manic depressive fall. One day is freezing with mean little pellets of ice flinging down from the sky. The next, it is sixty degrees and the confused insects, lethargic and sleepy, are droning through open doors. It provokes global warming conversation at every turn. And, the grill has still not fully gone into hibernation. The days however are short, so this is a mighty tasty, decadent but simple lunch for a late fall day. Put on your coat and break a baguette into chunks and sop this up outdoors, one more al dente (fresco) meal.

Remove and reserve the back bone from a whole chicken. Cut through breast cartilage to make two halves. Salt generously and put in fridge for a few hours (or overnight). light some hardwood charcoal in a grill. Douse chicken halves with olive oil, salt and pepper and rub into the skin. Roughly chop some garlic. In the pan, under each half of bird place some garlic along with some sprigs of fresh rosemary, thyme and savory. Put a whole head of garlic in the pan. Squeeze juice from a couple of lemons over and pour about 1/2 cup of white wine, or water, in the pan. When the coals are ready, put the pan on the grill and close the top of the grill. The temperature should be around 350-400. Roast, basting continually, till the chicken is nicely browned and the juices run clear, about an hour or so. Cut into pieces and serve! For the back, rub it with olive oil, salt and pepper. Put it directly on the grill while the rest of the chicken is cooking in the pan. Keep turning til it's crispy...chefs' treat! Or, if that is not your idea of a treat, save it for stock.

Having It All

photo by Coral
The idea of having it all infects our hopes and dreams, our doubts and fears, our books and movies and songs. Is it possible? "Of course!" we say on a good day. "Of course not!" we say on a hard day. This morning I was thinking about my friends who work, who have kids and homes and dishes and laundry, and still get out of the house every day and earn a living. The best I can approximate a work life is to write on the heavenly mornings both girls are in school. I consider it a major act of self care if I sit down to write instead of clean the house.
I saw a friend at the coffee shop the other morning getting her latte before work. Me, seeing her looking sharp and professional for work, she looked like she had it all. Her, seeing me, writing, she looked at me and thought I had it all. Within a minute she said she hungered for an unscheduled moment to walk, breathe, write. I said in the following minute I craved the structure and sense of accomplishment that comes from meaningful work, outside the home. And then we just cracked up. We are struggling to balance the range of our dreams, goals, expectations. Our children, our marriages, our waistlines. And the feeling of always having something that is not getting done, something important that is being left out, is persistent. This morning I left the dishes undone, packed my computer and headed back to the coffee shop after dropping everyone off at school. Leaving the dishes in the sink is as profound a symbol as I know for putting myself first. And that got me thinking, maybe having it all is about putting your self first often enough.
Maybe having it all is not the clean house, the brushed hair, the book deal, the kids with no boogers on their faces, the great job, the thriving marriage. Maybe having it all is having enough of any one of those things, one at a time. In the spirit of "be here now" how many things can be perfect all at once anyway?
Leaving the dishes in the sink is hard for me. I do not suffer from OCD, I swear. But what that says to me is, I think my time, me, is less important than a clean house. What if I say, no, I am more important than a clean house? That sounds fairly obvious, so why is it hard to remember, why is that hard to feel?
Here is my radical redefinition of having it all, as of today: putting myself first often enough, in ways and places that mean the most to me. That will be work, but I know one thing for sure, it will be rewarding, is rewarding, and that sink full of dishes can wait.

Chanterelle Moment

The post man knocked today and handed over a large but very light box, marked Albion, CA. A box from Grandma Lola! The girls and I opened it and instead of sparkly bracelets and fabulous socks, there were bags and bags of gorgeous, golden Chanterelles! Now, that is a present. The best kind of present in the world is something you cannot provide for yourself. And this one, an epic, earthy and unexpected surprise. Sent from the forest floor in California, arriving in our cozy living room, the two or three pounds of Chanterelles made me feel suddenly rich. Wild harvested mushrooms are a distinct wealth; they are rare, they require knowledge, and they are fleeting. Plans for the day were scrapped as I set out to preserve the bounty. I adapted a recipe for Duxelle from Well Preserved by Eugenia Bone. And we saved a bowlful for supper. Coral was a quick study in mushroom chopping, being as she is at the age of always wanting a job.
Grandma Lola sent this recipe:
"I saute them in olive oil. Slice, saute until golden, add garlic, saute all until toasty. Put aside. You have boiled several potatoes for a few minutes, then chunk or slice and brown the potatoes. Combine when the potatoes are as brown as you like...get ready for delicious! Marvelous with any meat, we love buffalo."
I served it with Bison Meatloaf and the girls ate voraciously. I told them it was fairy food from the forest floor foraged by Grandma Lola, and that might have piqued their enthusiasm. The best part of that explanation? It was true! And it was indeed, delicious.

Raw Tomato Sauce

I am a cook who likes ease, Craig likes challenge. My imagination tends to stop at the point where I think I have a well balanced meal, a pleasing combination of flavors, textures and colors. Craig is always questing, always digger deeper into his experience to improve and invent. Pasta is a success to me if I have the noodles just the right texture and it is not too salty. Pasta is a success to Craig if he knocks your socks off and elevates his fellow diners to speechless bliss. For example, last night was squid ink pasta with crab meat, lobster mushrooms, bottarga and chives. His cooking is about respecting the ingredients but boldly combining so that each takes on a dimension, a presence it would not have on its own. I am more about letting each ingredient fully be itself. Like the tomato and blue cheese salad from around this time last year, that combination is about the tomato really shining.
There is one pasta where our cooking styles meet, and that is in Raw Tomato Sauce. This is a sauce for now, right this minute. I feel a striking of relief when Craig makes this pasta. It is relieving to have a few things to learn from him that I can easily do, not so much because they are easy but because they relate to my cooking style.
Also, it is relaxing to eat a meal that is simple because there is little demand to appreciate the labor that went into it. Sometimes it is good to let a tomato be a tomato, to let dinner just be dinner. And, there is often a big clean up with an ambitious meal. This meal has a simple clean up, leaving more time to enjoy the falling golden light of these early evenings.

Take freshest possible raw tomatoes. Either paste tomatoes or giant, watery heirlooms. Aroma and texture are key.
Slice them in half and squeeze the seeds out.
Grate on a box grater into a big bowl. Discard skins.
If you are using tomatoes with a lot of water, grate into a bowl and then strain some of the water off. (The tomato water is very yummy as a beverage. We added a little salt, pepper, chiso and shochu for a cocktail.)
Mince or paste garlic to taste. Careful not to overpower the tomato.
Sea salt and pepper to taste.
Your very best olive oil to taste. I had wished for a super fresh extra virgin olive oil, the kind that is so peppery as to be spicy.
Let that sit while you cook your pasta.
Toss and sprinkle with minced basil or other herb and Parmesan.
Variations we've added so far include anchovies and lemon zest.

September 10, 2001

Dear Friends,
On this evening, incomprehensibly 10 years since September 11th, I wrote this essay of my own experience, and wanted to share it.
With love,
Elvina

On September 10, 2001, I rushed home to watch the lightening storm that was collecting in the sky as the evening turned to night. My apartment at 100 Beekman Street was shared by a friend who inherited the very, very rent stabilized two bedroom from his great aunt. It was an awful yet wonderful, musty apartment with terrible furniture and truly great art. And, it had a tiny balcony, barely larger than a yoga mat, with a very high fence around it, which was appropriate given that we were eighteen floors up. Eighteen floors. The fact that it was on the eighteenth floor had given me a feeling of destiny when through a friend I reconnected with an old friend and sublet the apartment, eighteen had always, since early childhood baseball jerseys, been a favorite number.

Leaving work just after five on September 10, I could feel that it was going to be one of the marvelous nights of an electrical storm with lots of lightening. This was a high point of the apartment: our tiny balcony looked out over the World Trade Center buildings, and in electrical storms, when the sky filled with lightening, it was a miracle, a wondrous beauty like the pyramids or the Grand Canyon, to watch all the lightening in the sky collect and travel in unison towards the lightening rod in the South Tower.

I knew exactly the timing, watching the sky go grey and slowly acquire the pregnant green of a real rain storm, I had about 45 minutes from when I stepped of the train til when the lightening storm would start. I ran home. Giant golden and red heirloom tomatoes from the Saturday Union Square Market sat in a bowl. Also, a half bottle of the most expensive wine I had ever to that point bought myself. It was not the very cute, persuasive young man at Battali’s Italian Wine Merchant that had sold me, but the finely detailed lithograph of a bird on a branch. I thought I might save it for fifteen years, but as I bustled to get my pasta cooked and tossed it with basil, Parmesan and the tomatoes, I looked at that bottle and had a full feeling of carpe diem and decided to open it for the show tonight, the storm.

That is my first inkling of some deep and wide intuition about the night, the day we were to face the next morning by nine a.m. That sort of spontaneity and indulgence is unusual in me, I am a more fraught and doubtful personality. To open, on what seemed like a whim, this bottle, made sense only in retrospect. My one fine wine glass, my favorite bowl, my own self, alone, set up dinner on the balcony and in thirty seconds from sitting, a warm wind blew up and signaled the start of the storm. Moments later, the first currents of blue-white lightening cracked the sky and met, in a handshake of sorts, the long spire of the South Tower's lightening rod.

I twirled my pasta and sipped this majestic wine. The taste was so thorough, so elegant and demanding it made me sit up straighter in my chair, it narrowed and focused my thoughts, it punctuated my sense of gratitude and beauty for this moment. A moment at once ordinary: a storm in a city; and yet utterly extraordinary: a storm in a city, watched from an 18th floor balcony, watching the lightening collect in the giant, elegant structures of the World Trade Center.

Craig had long ago started calling Serena, my sister, and I the Twin Towers. Two tall, slender girls always downtown, always side by side, always walking along, heading south, the buildings just over our shoulders, guiding us and orienting us to South as we learned the city together. As we learned the city, but more, as we fell in love with the city. And I do. I love New York City. I love it as I love my very best friends I have grown up with. I know what neighborhoods to go to for comfort the way I know what friend to call when I need to cry and be listened to. I know where to go when I need challenge and exalted inspiration. I know what streets to avoid on garbage night in the summer. I know New York City, and I love it.

September 10th would have been a night I looked back on even if September 11th had never occurred. Even if the towers were still standing. Even if I had not seen, the very next morning, people jumping from so many floors up, taking some sense of emotional and physical control for the end of their lives. Even if my apartment had not filled wit h dust, if the smell of the burning towers for months afterward had not burned itself in my mind and memory forever, I would still hold September 10 dear to my heart. It was a perfect night. It was like the first kiss in a date with the man who becomes your husband, it was a moment crystallized because it was perfect, and provoked because of all that followed.

The lightening filled the sky on September 10th. My favorite part, the part I hoped for as I rushed home to watch storms in the four years I live on Beekman Street, was when the sky filled with lightening bolts and they all collected on the spire of the South Tower, like a scene in an ancient King Kong or Godzilla movie. And on this night, at several points, the lightening radiated into the spire like spines on a fan, coming from points so far that they arrived to the spire in a horizontal line, flat against the horizon.

The wind was warm and in the rough, chaotic clash of the city, the air was like a balm and the world felt like a gentle and sensuous place. The wine slid down my throat and radiated and bloomed in flavor and warmth, I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. Content in my solitude. My simple end of summer meal tasting of earth and season. My strange, excellent home suspended in the sky. And nature, nature in the form of this storm, commingling with the nature of man’s need and ability to conquer the elements, to conquer, with sky scrapers, the sky itself.

The rain thundered down. The sound of tires on wet road filled the air with splashing white noise. The sky filled with fingers of light, all pointing to the Towers. The Towers speckled with lights on and lights off. I wondered who was there, working late, I peered into windows nearer, people eating, children playing, lots of flickering blue TV light.

Alone and in love with the city, the moment, and these beautiful towers I had come to regard as companions, I wondered who else was out there, watching them, enraptured by this beautiful storm, as I was so fully in that moment. I wondered then who else was filled with a beauty that verged on weeping and closed my eyes and sent out a silent kiss, a feeling of great love extended from my chest and emanated like wave, out into the unknown, to be received by anyone who was there in that moment, feeling awe, struck by the beauty.

I think of my unknown friends who watched that beautiful storm that night, watching the storm come and go, watching the bright stars pierce the sky as the thick and heaving rain clouds broke up and were swept by the warm wind out of the sky and on to their next stopping point.

In a way I think I stopped there, thinking of the buildings themselves, during that sensual, spectacular storm. To think of the people, the families, the extent of the individual loss, and the cultural loss of innocence in the violence of the fall of the Towers, that is a wretched heartbreak. These ten years I have contemplated every level of the loss, read essays, watched films, and contemplated and talked. But I always, as perhaps is human, come back to myself. My own ache, my own shock at seeing the buildings, the actual structures, fall, in real time, from my office windows, and think, those Twin Towers, those beautiful girls, they cannot be gone. They cannot be gone. I loved them too much for them to be gone. And yet, I watched them fall, with my own eyes. I watched them fall and realized that I had left my windows open that warm September morning. And I wondered. I wondered if my windows would still be in place, what was happening to all the surrounding buildings in the dense knot of downtown. I wondered what it would smell like, how hard would it be to clean, when I got home.

My wine glass was there, the tiny pool of liquid collected at the belly button over the stem, coated with dust. The memory of the night, I rushed to collect it, to maintain it, I sniffed the glass, the wine that was left and begged to be reminded of the perfect innocent evening, of the Towers standing, of the awesome storm, of the bright stars in the black sky beaming, revealed from behind the clouds as they swept away on the warm September wind.

I washed my glass. I placed it in the dish rack. I got out the vacuum cleaner. I surveyed the half inch of dust over everything: the awful yellow velour couch, the wooden frames on the paintings, the degrading linoleum floor. My mind went to the bright, beaming starts, piercing the sky twelve hours before. The people jumping from the towers, the crushed cars lining Beekman, Fulton, Gold and Pearl Streets. This was my home. I started cleaning up, but it was the stars, the lightening and the storm that I held in my hand with the comfort of a child’s hand in a parents. Ten years later that is still where my mind goes when I think of September 11. An ordinary night became a talisman for the beauty that sustains through the longest of griefs.

Bounty

All in a Day
Sunday, September 4th
Sliced, cold smoked, panko fried eggplant.
Hard toasted bread with basil pesto, home dried tomatoes, parmesean.
Later, cold smoked, green zebra tomatoes, grated raw into a sauce, and a beverage.
Pear tart with blueberries, pears from our tall, skinny wild pear tree growing between the White Pines.

And then after the tart was assembled, there was Hanger Steak, and a sautee of mushrooms from the forest floor.

Ham and Butter Sandwich

If you are looking for an ultimately satisfying sandwich, as quickly as possible, to grab one more picnic from the ever shortening and cooling days of summer into fall, grab for one of these.

Baguette,
Shown here, Wide Awake Bakery wood fired oven bread,
Sliced, smoked pork of almost any texture: finely sliced deli ham, prosciutto. Shown here, Piggery Deli Ham.
Fresh Cream Butter

Slather butter as you would mayonnaisse, kind of a lot. Believe me, it's good that way. Also, sliced cornichons or other crisp, not too damp a pickle.

Sun Salad

This salad was part of the July Feast and is a wonderful example of spontaneity and creativity with food. The guests were due at 5:00 and we had a great menu already planned. The first guests were our farmer friends from Red Tail Farm. They came laden with stew chickens for the chest freezer, already thinking of winter, and Sungold tomatoes from their hoop houses.
By the time I came up from putting the stew chicks away, Craig had this gorgeous, glorious creation on the table. If I am honest I will confess that my astonishment had a tinge of irritation. Looking at this platter of golden and purple, my jaw gaped and I felt awe co-mingle with a feeling of "What? Are you kidding me? He just whips that up?" But my joy coursed over and around this irritated awe, and I was simply amazed, again, by beauty.
Absolute, true creativity: a response to the environment, what is around, in reach, catching your eye, making sense to your unspoken, intuitive senses. This level of spontaneous creativity is where, I believe, you can see the amount of sheer time and work, the discipline that comes before the beauty. The work that is in fact what enables the beauty to ever come to be.
Enabling beauty to come to be. That makes work and passion and discipline sound pretty important.
Sungold Salad. And the blueberries are the sun spots!
Frame a plate with zucchini blossoms torn into wide pieces along petals. Edible Marigold petals would also look nice and have a similarly sweet, fleshy presence.
Halve the sungolds and toss with:
olive oil, lemon, tiny bit of white wine (Chardonnay) vinegar, salt, pepper, all to taste. Not too much dressing, just a sheen.
Add blueberries and lightly toss.
Add very thinly sliced basil, just a bit, and toss.
Mound, in a sun like fashion, into the center of plate, within blossoms.

A July Feast

A July feast. To celebrate: blueberries, birthdays, new albums, losing baby teeth, friendships, family.

Green Salad

a green salad

a cucumber peeled and sliced into thin rounds
1/2 pint fresh peas, shelled
fresh mint leaves slivered
parsley leaves roughly chopped
a fresh shallot finely diced
a fennel bulb (or two depending on size) sliced thinly across the bulb. as well chop a bit of the fennel greens as well.
salt/pepper/lemon juice/red wine vinegar/olive oil
an avocado sliced

make a dressing by letting the shallots, lemon juice, red wine vinegar (i do roughly 1-2 lemon juice to vinegar…sometimes 1-1. depends on taste), salt and pepper in a bowl or cup. after the shallots have macerated for about 10 minutes add olive oil, stir to combine. adjust seasoning if needed.

in a mixing bowl combine all (except the avocado) the other ingredients and the dressing. gently mix with your hands. plate, arrange the avocado and serve.

Languid Rabbit

Languid Rabbit
About the only time a you will find a rabbit looking languid is when you are cooking one. Looking at this little wild creature on the grill I was surprised to notice how graceful the shape of the rabbit body was, what lovely lines to the arching back and tiny yet sumptuous, muscled legs. The famously frenetic animal suddenly looked so relaxed.
These bunnies are pretty wild. The couple that sells these rabbits at the market raises them in a fairly controlled yet natural bunny habitat: they forage for nearly all of their food. Of course we like the taste and idea of this production model, but it is was our older daughter who originally motivated us to eat more wild, or at least not completely un-wild, animal protein.
When Colby was about a year old and we were wide open to any ideas to help her intensely fragile, erratic neurology, I was talking with her acupuncturist. It was she who suggested wild animal protein, animals with real muscles who had roamed and foraged, on land or sea. It made intuitive sense to me when she said it, and then the evidence pored in when we gave Colby her first taste of red meat, very free range Bison. She was ravenous for it and slept solidly for the first time since her seizures started. She had more energy than ever the next day, despite the monster dose of anti-convulsants she was on.
We kept exploring: sardines, wild salmon, rabbit, duck, venison, anything we could find that was raised or grew in relative wildness. The question we asked in making choices was simple: does it, this animal, actually have muscles? And not just from standing. Has it had to run for its life, been rained on, felt the sunshine?
This lovely, languid bunny had certainly felt the sunshine. And in its honor we sat in the sunlight outside, on the grass, feeling half wild ourselves. Colby tore into the sinuous protein with gusto, and slept well that night.
To make:
Line the bottom of a skillet or roasting pan with pancetta (or smoky bacon) sliced about 1'16" thick. Rinse, pat dry a large rabbit (3-4lbs) and put in pan on top of pork. Massage the rabbit with olive oil. Salt liberally. Crack black pepper all over inside and out. Stuff fresh rosemary, thyme, savory and a sprig of oregano in the cavity. Roughly chop 5 cloves of garlic and toss around the rabbit and in the cavity. Throw in a handful or two of green, briny olives. Add some duck fat (if you like) and a generous splash of dry white wine. You may also put a whole head of garlic to roast at the same time, if you like.

Get a roaring wood fire (hardwood, hardwood charcoal or a combination) going in a grill with a top, like a Stoke or Weber. When the fire is about 400 degrees put the pan (open) on the grill and close the top. Periodically baste the beast. Turn it over in the pan every 20 minutes or so. Depending on the size of the rabbit, it should take an hour or so. Don't let it get overcooked. You can also take the rabbit out of the pan before it is too cooked and finish it directly on the grill for a variation.

Serve with green beans and potatoes (tossed in olive oil and lemon juice) with the pan juices and olives. Spread the soft, roasted garlic on country bread.